ArchivedLogs:Eggs, Toast, Coffee

Eggs, Toast, Coffee
Dramatis Personae Jim, Melinda
In Absentia	2013-03-14 '
Location <NYC> Melinda and Tag’s Apartment - Lower East Side
It is morning in New York City. Melinda is up somewhat early despite the fact that she works the night shift tonight. It’s difficult to break habits. She has started a pot of coffee around eight am and is still wandering around drinking it quietly in her pajamas - flannel pants and an old tee, with a bathrobe hanging open around her shoulders. Sometime around nine, she starts to make breakfast. Lazy mornings are glorious. She doesn’t expect to do anything else until eleven, when she goes out to check her mail. Watch out. BAMBAM-bm. Someone /was/ knocking on Melinda’s door. Until they apparently realized how loud it was. Then just STOPPED. Maybe it was a gremlin. Melinda jumps at the sudden noise and looks around with a crease of concern on her brow. When it disappears, she stares at the door, mug in hand, waiting for it to do something else. What may originally be dismissed as ‘someone at the wrong door’ continues to poke at her curiosity. She dodges away from the eggs she is cooking to go peek through the peep hole to see if the mysterious knocker has disappeared. Sometimes it is the police. They like to ask about the neighbors when there is CRIME. There’s no police outside. Just a slouchy /JIM/ in tweed. He stands with his hands crammed in his pockets and, through the vision of the peep hole, he can be seen /squinting/ down the hallway from whence he’s come. Melinda considers this sight for a moment, thoughtful, then unlocks the door and pulls it open. “Hey.” She doesn’t open the door fully. Instead, she leans against it a bit to block the door. “What’s up?” Jim swings head head back around to look at her. Like he’s /annoyed/ at the interruption of his hallway mouth-breathing. “What d’you mean what’s up. I’m visiting you.” Not that he’s trying to muscle his way through the door or anything. He just stands there with his brows rocketed up, like ‘duh’. Mel blinks at this and considers again. “Oh. Okay. Hi.” She gives him a quick smile and then freezes up. “Oh Shit. My eggs.” And then she’s off. She leaves the door open for Jim as she runs back to the kitchen to examine the damage. The poor things are black and smoking. She flicks on the stove’s hood fan and scowls. Jim moseys in behind her, sort of frowning at her belongings. Where she branches off to investigate her eggs, he forks in another direction to explore whatever sort of /living/ room she might have. “What’re you burning?” He has one hand crammed in his pocket like a little boy in a museum - no touchies! Too bad the other hand is its evil twin - this one is /riffling/, maybe picking up a pillow on the couch just to toss it down again “Eggs. Didn’t I just say that?” Melinda tosses them in the sink and turns the water on over them so that they cool down. She places the skillet back on the stove and moves to close the door behind Jim and lock it again. The living room is mainly furnished by found pieces, two chairs and a couch. None of it was constructed at the same time, but it all has been reupholstered with the same cloth, the surfaces colored similarly and with a regular weave. The wood has all been refinished as well, dark and able to hide stains well. The walls are colorful, but that goes with the territory of having a mutant roommate with Tag’s ability. Today, it is a sage green with some abstract blue and orange intermingling in different places. Tomorrow it will be different. A cursory inspection shows that six people live in this four bedroom apartment, so it’s difficult to pick out what belongs to any one person. Melinda returns to the kitchen and cleans out her skillet before returning it to the stove to start over. Her poor toast, waiting on a plate, is getting cold. “Do you want some?” Here, Jim pauses - mid magazine-page turn! (assuming there’s a magazine within eyesight; maybe it’s a ROMANCE novel) He has to think about whether he’s /eaten/ or not. “Yeah. Who’se your fucking decorator?” He uses ‘fucking’ more as a casual title, like Mr., than a curse. Eyeing the walls like they might close in on him. “Um, My roommate, but he takes suggestions. That... might be someone else’s idea.” Melinda heats the pan and puts in a little oil, then gets the carton of eggs out of the fridge and begins cracking four into the skillet. She puts the eggs away and puts more toast in. “And he changes it up all the time, so I don’t really know what to expect out here. Yesterday, the walls were just green.” Jim eyes the walls, “... like. He paints?” His nostrils flair - it doesn’t /smell/ like a fresh paint job... “Hey. I don’t discuss what you do with other people.” Melinda gives him a deadpan stare as she responds, turning back to the eggs to flip them after a while. “Hard yolk or soft?” Jim rotates around on his heels to partways face Melinda, squinting at her over the plane of his shoulder, “The hell does that mean?” He says this pretty casual-wary, but it gets absurdly rougher in accusative, “/Soft/.” “It doesn’t mean anything.” Melinda’s brow furrows in concern. She gets out another plate and puts the fresh toast on it, sliding two eggs onto it next. She puts the other two on with the cold buttered toast and turns the burner off. She fetches butter from the fridge and places it on the dining room table with the salt and pepper, then brings out the eggs. “What’s going on, Jim. You’ve never visited me before and now you’re super curious about my roommates.” She wanders back to the kitchen for utensils. Jim drifts towards the table Melinda is setting, wrapping his hands around the back of a chair with a frown, “How the hell is asking if your roommate paints when you just said he redoes the walls ‘super curious’ - it’s following the freaking narrative of a /conversation/.” While grousing, he’s rearranging the settings of the table to make room for the plates, positioning the salt and pepper strategically in the middle. “I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by. The hell.” He pulls out a chair absently for Melinda to sit down. “He’s a street artist - you know, not the legal shit. And I know you. You’re finding something weird and picking at it.” Melinda takes the seat offered, but only after she’s fetched two glasses of orange juice. “You know it’s weird. I know it’s weird. I’m asking you to drop it.” She stretches out to grab the salt and pepper and seasons her eggs. Then she puts the containers back where Jim put them. “/What/.” Jim pushes Melinda’s seat it with his brows /crumpled/ up in disgruntlement, taking a seat as well. “I pick. It’s my fucking job. But y’know what?” He expansively gestures, “It’s dropped. See me dropping it.” He takes the salt and pepper shakers, which he shakes /unnecessarily hard/ at his eggs. Then he claps his hands together over his plate like he’s about to pray, “/So/.” Expectant-tight /smile/? “How about that weather.” “It’s getting cold again.” Melinda replies coolly. She takes a sip of her juice. “I’m not denying you your job, Jim. Please, continue to do your job on your off time while you’re visiting a friend.” She rolls her eyes unconsciously and starts cutting her eggs up, pursing her lips at them. “SO. How have you been?” She can at least sound light and pleasant when she changes the topic of conversation. “Busy.” Jim is not helping. He’s wolfing. He wasn’t meaning to, but the egg he tried to fork a bite off of didn’t tear like he’d intended, the full thing swinging off the tines, so he’s had to duck his head down to catch it with his FACE before it splats back onto the plate. “You?” Full-mouthed ‘you’. Melinda blinks at Jim’s eating habits and purses her lips further. She puts some of her egg bits on her toast and eats it that way. “Well, busy too. Found out that a short term safe house opened recently and have been spending a lot of time there, cooking and helping people get back on their feet.” She takes another bite as she watches Jim, and when that has cleared, she asks, “You want more? You seem hungry.” “Short term safe house.” Jim doesn’t ask it. He states it. His /stare/ is what informs her ‘you know I’m going to fucking ask about that’. He can convey this sentiment even while wiping yoke off the corner of his mouth. “What?” Melinda narrows her eyes on him. “is this how this conversation is going to go? You’re going to sit there, expecting me to tell you every detail about my life while sitting on your own story and not giving any ground because your secrets are sacred, but me and mine, we’re not important enough for privacy? Is it because I’m not a private investigator, or is it because I’m not a mutant?” She begins eating again, taking bites of egg toast with deliberate slowness. “What makes you think-,” hang on, his default response is acting up, he rewinds, “What the hell does -,” even here, indoors, lifelong habit has Jim cast a glance over his shoulder, volume lowering, “- being a mutant have to do with anything. Christ, you sound like my ex-wife. /Either/ of them.” He sort of set/tosses down his fork like he’s THROUGH... with forks. And instead picks up his orange juice, “What d’you /want/ me t’tell you? Tell me that. What d’you wanna know.” “You think this is about you?” Melinda asks, mystified. “Good gravy. I’ve got Jax limping around the house, lying to my face about injuries, while his kid is telling me shit about dragons and acid. I’ve got a mess of seriously traumatized people climbing the walls of an apartment or two, trying to get through each day and all I can do is give them a hot meal or a change of clothes. I can’t get shit out of any of them, and I don’t want to try. They got enough shit to deal with. But, when I turn to someone I think might talk to me honestly, and I get the same wall. I’m sorry if I sound like your ex. I don’t want to be /that/ person. Keep your secrets. Eat your eggs.” She takes another bite of food then heads to the kitchen, making coffee. “For crying out loud,” Jim leans back in his seat to run a hand over his face. KNEADING it. “What’s /with/ you people lately. It’s like I can’t walk down the fucking street unless I’ve sent out a bulletin to let the /world/ know where I’m going, and what the /danger level/ might be for the day.” “Danger level?” Melinda pauses in the middle of measuring out coffee grounds to turn and stare at Jim. “What the hell are you talking about?” She scoops a couple sloppy spoonfuls into the filter and slaps into place. She then turns on the pot and turns back to stare at Jim fully. “I didn’t ask you if it was dangerous. For fuck’s sake, I know it’s dangerous. I’ve accepted that you’re likely going to get killed on one of these jobs of yours. In fact, the first time I saw you, you got shot by some asshole in a park. You can’t even sit in a park without getting wounded. I don’t doubt whatever you’re doing is dangerous. I just asked for information. I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes some how.” “Who says ‘/wounded/’,” Jim says this with his /hands/ clawed up, bouncing from his chair to *follow after* Melinda, filling up the doorway with a shoulder propped to the frame, “No one says ‘wounded’. I got /jumped/, that ain’t me, that’s just fucking New York. If Shelby hadn’t opened her big-ass mouth I’d have had it --.” He strikes down THAT WHOLE TRAIN OF THOUGHT in the name of, “And you never once asked for any information. You asked me how I /been/. I /been/ busy. -- Can I smoke in here?” He’s cramming a hand in his pocket. Melinda pauses and considers, stumped when Jim brings up Shelby. She leans against the counter for a moment. “You can smoke by the fire escape with the window open.” She closes her eyes and rubs at one temple for a moment. “So I didn’t ask the right question. Forgive me.” The funny thing is, she actually sounds apologetic. She looks up at him calmly and works her jaw around an idea or two silently before starting again. “So. Jim. What have you been up to? What does this have to do with Shelby? Are you okay?” “What?” Jim is already over at the window, jamming it open. You’d think he’d borrowed Flicker’s powers for how quick he’d gotten over there. “Nah, I was meaning that time at the park. This ain’t got anything to do with Shelby--” He fits a cigarette into his mouth and then raises his eyes to look up at the sky outside, “-well. Come to think of it. Y’remember her arm? She got it fixed.” He flik-flik’s his lighter. “Oh.” Melinda considers this for a moment and is quiet. She is quiet while the coffee brews and quiet as she fills a cup for herself and one for Jim, adding cream and sugar to hers. She moves over to where Jim is and sets down his cup on the sill beside him. She then moves back over to her seat and starts back in on her breakfast. “I don’t know what to ask,” she admits at length. “It would be nice to know how you’re doing, what you’ve been up to, how things are going - whatever you want to talk about.” She glances over at Jim. “Whatever is okay.” Jim’s cigarette is paused halfway to his face, his faded blue eyes /pinned/ at Melinda through a cockeyed squint that all but /screams/ ‘do you realize who you’re talking to?’ He puts his hand around the cup and takes time to pull in a drag, turn head, /exhale/ smoke at the alley below, “Think you got the wrong guy, lady.” “So. What does ‘visiting’ mean to you?” Melinda asks, cradling her coffee between her fingertips, elbows braced against her abdomen. “For me, visiting means catching up with a friend, seeing what they have been up to and what they are going to be doing next.” She takes a sip and considers. “If you just wanted me to make you breakfast, that’s fine, I guess.” “Uwagh.” Jim eloquently lands on this word, ficking his only half-finished cigarette into the alley. “Yeah, I ain’t doing this. I was just stopping by ‘cause I was in the neighborhood an’ you’re making it a /thing/. I hate that. Thanks for the eggs.” And coffee. Which he /slurps/. “Fine. Consider it not a thing again.” Melinda pulls one leg up and braces her heel on the chair seat that she’s sitting on, wrapping an arm around her shin as she finishes the last of her eggandtoast. Once done, she grabs her coffee and takes a sip. “You never did say if you wanted more eggs.” “Ahhh!” Jim throws up his arms, “How do you even make eggs weird!” He fail-opens the door which involves running his body into it preemptively just short of turning the handle all the way, THUMP-”fck!” and, with a hand braced against his forehead he growls, “/Keep/ ‘em.” Well, except the ones he ate. He’s taking that with him. Bam. Exit: Stage Left! (And ‘clump-clump-clump’ down the hall.) Melinda remains seated, pulling her other leg up to her chest and sighing. She stays there for the time being, drinking her coffee until it is gone, then gets up and makes sure the door is locked before wandering off to a shower.